Chapter Thirteen
After two weeks on the island, Verity had forgotten who she was away from it.
It was a blissful respite from reality that she had never really imagined taking before.
And it was amazing. All they had done for two weeks was eat, make love, swim in the ocean and make love again.
Sometimes she cooked food for him; sometimes he did it for her.
They dined on the beach, on the deck outside of their bedroom, in bed.
If their lives could be like this, always, then everything would be okay. She was certain of that.
It was just too bad that away from here they had lives. Though, they got along so well in their professional lives. Maybe she could keep on being his assistant, even though she was his wife.
But this was only two weeks into the six months. She wasn’t supposed to be making decisions about the future this early. Of course, they had talked about the future. About children.
Part of her wanted to throw caution to the wind and her birth control pills into the trash and tell him she wanted everything right now.
But she had a feeling that her desperation was more of her instinct to protect herself. To make this permanent. Because at this point, she was terrified of what it would look like if she lost him.
She was also struck by the difference between managing someone, and doing things for them because she wanted to. She had thought that a relationship would be labor. Work.
She and Alex did things for each other, and it made her happy. Cooking for him delighted her, because he enjoyed it. And she had never really gotten to take care of another person before. There was something lovely about it. Something deeply satisfying.
One night over dinner she realized that she didn’t know one of the most basic things about him.
“When is your birthday?”
“Why?” he asked, looking deeply suspicious of her.
“Because I want to know what your astrological sign is so I can do our chart.”
“You must be joking.”
“I think you’re a Taurus. But I am joking.”
“I don’t know what that means, but... I don’t know exactly.”
“What do you mean you don’t know exactly?”
“I don’t have a birth certificate from when I was actually born. I had one that the state filled out, but they can only approximate my age. I have never celebrated it on a specific day. It’s in April. At least, that is their best guess.”
“A Taurus. Most likely.” She said that, and tried to smile, but mostly what he had just said hurt.
It hurt badly, because he didn’t even know this most..
.basic thing about himself. She wished that she didn’t know who his parents were, because she wanted to go and fight them.
She wanted to go and fight a state that had made him feel useless, made him feel like his failure to be adopted was his fault.
She wanted to bake him a birthday cake and celebrate him and give him everything that he had ever been denied.
“It’s never meant anything to me. My understanding is that those things only matter when you have someone to celebrate with.”
“I don’t know. I like my birthday just fine, even with the family that I have.”
“I’ve never celebrated.”
She decided that wasn’t acceptable. She called their supply source and arranged for some gifts to be brought to the island, along with decorations and supplies for a recipe she’d been wanting to try for a while.
And then there was the cake. She was the most excited about the cake. Of course, with their situation on the island it wasn’t exactly like she could surprise him. And anyway, she wasn’t sure surprising Alex was the best thing to do with him. What she surprised him with, were the supplies.
“What is all this?” he asked as he helped arrange everything in the kitchen.
“I’ve decided that you’re going to have a birthday party. I’m going to bake you a cake.”
“It’s not my birthday.”
“I don’t care. You’ve missed too many celebrations. And I’m going to celebrate you, dammit.”
He looked at her like she was something strange and foreign, and maybe even wondrous. She couldn’t deny that it made her feel a shimmering, pleasurable sensation.
She wanted him to say that he was happy with her. That the idea was wonderful. He didn’t say that, but he didn’t tell her not to do it. He hung out on the periphery of the kitchen area like an animal that had been banished, prowling like he was waiting for something.
“What are you cooking?” he asked over the invisible line that he had drawn for himself.
“Homemade pasta and scallops.”
His eyes went sharp, and she recognized that he was pleased with that answer. Even though he didn’t say, she was warmed.
He went back to pacing.
When she started hanging streamers around the room, his expression shifted to one of total shock.
“What?” she asked. “You can’t have a party without streamers.”
“I... I didn’t know that.”
“Well, now you do. It’s festive.”
There was something strange about the way he behaved after that.
It reminded her the most of the way he was during work.
That wall in place, like he was trying to observe some sort of custom very carefully.
It was definitely not how he’d been acting during their time here.
But she was determined to persist even though he was being weird.
Of course he was, if she really thought about it. He wasn’t used to anything like this. He had said so himself.
The Happy Birthday that she wrote on the cake was a little bit lopsided, but she was pleased with it all the same. It was chocolate, and it would taste good, so it didn’t really matter if it was pretty.
She put a candle in the center, ready for her to light once they were done with dinner.
“Go sit down outside, and I’ll serve you.”
He did what she said, but his movements were robotic.
And when she served him, he didn’t get any warmer. She sat across from him, hoping to draw him out. He was stilted, but not unkind.
“I didn’t even make you eat salad,” she said, and that coaxed a small smile from him.
When they finished with dinner she went into the kitchen, lit the candle on the cake and brought it out to him. She sang, even if badly, and set the cake down in front of him. “And now you blow out the candle and make a wish.”
He blew the candle out, and looked up at her with haunted, hollow eyes. And then he stood up, and walked over to the railing of the deck, resting his forearms against the top of it, staring out sightlessly at the dark water.
“Alex,” she said. “What’s wrong?”
“It doesn’t mean anything to me,” he said, his voice rough. “I don’t...care about this.”
The first thing she felt was pity. An enormous heaping of self-pity, actually, not pity for him.
She had worked so hard on this, and he didn’t care.
It meant nothing to him that she had put all this effort in, that she had thought of him, that she had wanted to give him something that he had never had before. It meant absolutely nothing.
And then, just as suddenly as that welled up inside of her, it went away. Because of course that wasn’t what he was saying. He wasn’t saying that it didn’t matter that she had done this; it was the party itself. It was his first birthday party, and he didn’t know what to feel.
Because he didn’t understand this. He had already explained how Christmas was for him.
That he couldn’t feel this thing he was certain he was supposed to because he had no nostalgia attached to it.
Even worse, she suspected he had a host of pain associated with these things.
Whether he wanted to admit it or not. Whether he even knew it or not. He had missed a lifetime of this.
And this was his deepest fear. She hadn’t even thought of that. Hadn’t considered it.
“Maybe it doesn’t this time,” she said. “But it can. This is just the first one. But next year, you’ll remember this.”
His face was half in shadows, his eyes black. “Why would I ever want to remember this? This reminder of everything that I’m not. Everything that I can’t be.”
“Then...” She felt like she was bleeding from the inside. She felt like she had caused him pain when that was the last thing she wanted to do. And all she wanted to do was fix it. She just wanted to fix it. “Then let’s make this the memory.”
She kissed him. With everything she had. Kissed him with everything she had tried to put into the birthday party. Kissed him with all the desire inside of her. To be good for him. To be perfect for him.
To gain his praise, but now more than that. To make him feel. She wanted it. So much. So badly. To be the one who could change this. Who could change him.
He wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her back, his desperation matching hers.
“I need you,” she whispered. “I want you.” She wanted to find the words.
To find something to make him feel even half for her what she did for him.
He knew exactly what to say to her. She didn’t have the words for him.
“I need you,” she said. Because it was true. Because it was the only thing she could think of.
He didn’t carry her inside. Rather he picked her up and carried her over to the lounger, stripping her of her party dress and growling when she was naked beneath the moonlight.
This wasn’t that sweet gesture she was trying to offer him.
This was something else. Something intense.
Something feral. But this was what he needed, and she was going to give it to him.
Even if it cost her.
Intense. She had always sought to avoid intensity. She had wanted to go through life without connections that cost her.
That was her mistake.
This was so much better than being protected.
This was so much better than being safe.
She wanted him. Everything that he was. Everything.
Even the broken things, the frightening things.
The things that could wound her. After all, the way he was hurt him.
Why wouldn’t it hurt her sometimes? And the way she was.
.. She had hurt herself with it. She had spent all this time denying herself. Hiding.
She wasn’t afraid, not anymore. Maybe Alex would end up hurting her.
But he was worth it. He was so infinitely worth it.
That was the difference. The difference between him and her parents. The difference between everything that they could be, and everything that her family had been.
She chose Alex. And that was different in and of itself.
But more than that, he gave to her too. He had, over the years that she had known him, and he had while they had been here on the island. He took care of her. He gave her the words that she needed. Maybe he was best at all of it when they were in bed, but that was just the way he found it easiest.
He gave her something that made her feel good.
He cared about making her feel good. This wasn’t a one-way street.
This was caring. Whether he knew it or not.
She wanted him to understand that. This was connection.
Maybe it was the only place he could feel it.
Maybe. But then she would be here for him this way.
“I’m yours,” she whispered. “You don’t have to do anything to try and keep me. I’m already here. I married you. You’re my husband. I’m yours.”
He shivered beneath her touch, and she maneuvered herself that she was straddling him on the lounger, unbuttoned his shirt as she felt him growing hard between her thighs. She kissed him. “I belong to you.”
He reached up and gripped the back of her hair, pulling hard. The noise that he made was savage, and she kissed him, swallowing the end of it, claiming it for herself.
He wanted that. He wanted her. He wanted that connection that he didn’t think he could feel. He wanted some external marker. Some form of proof. Her word. Her promise. She would give it to him. Because she cared for him. She cared for him so much.
She...
She pushed that thought away. She kissed him. Deeper, harder. Making a physical vow out of what she had already spoken.
Naked in the moonlight, she straddled him as she undid the closure on his pants and freed him so that she could position herself over him, take him inside, moving up and down slowly, luxuriating in the feel of him inside of her.
The feel of this connection. “You don’t feel nothing with me,” she whispered.
She wasn’t even sure if he could understand her. She wasn’t sure if she was coherent.
But she knew that much was true. She wasn’t some stranger that he lost his virginity to; she wasn’t a birthday party.
He felt something for her. And he felt connected to her now. In this moment, they were something. In this moment, they were real.
She pushed them both to the brink, until he was shaking, sweating. Until a horrible, hollow-eyed look was gone, and it was replaced with need. Desire.
He was hers. She was his. This was true. Undeniably.
Even if he had a hard time admitting it. Even if right now he couldn’t understand it.
He gripped her hips and took the control from her, thrusting up inside of her, his strength, the ruthlessness of each thrust driving her closer to the edge.
And when they fell, they fell together, even connected in this. In pleasure.
She lay down over him, her hair spread out over his chest like a blanket.
“You felt something then,” she said.
He wrapped his arm around her, but said nothing.
Still. She knew that it was true.
She had to believe that it was true.